Chapter 3
I didn't even grant him a glance. I rose gracefully and walked onto the stage.
Lifting the polished black lid of the grand piano, I let my fingers ghost over the keys. A melody, as clear and pure as a mountain spring, flowed into the silent hall.
Every eye in the room was on me. Even Samuel's gaze was fixed on my hands for a long moment. The notes rose and fell, and with the final, resonant chord, the music faded.
I stood and walked slowly to where Rose stood.
"You were wrong," I said. "About everything."
Those few words were enough to make her face turn livid, leaving her speechless.
I turned my gaze to the judges in the front row, who were now pointedly avoiding my eyes. Their faces flushed with shame.
"And as for all of you," I said, my voice ringing with authority, "only you know how much you were paid. And only you know if you truly deserve the seats you're sitting in."
My voice wasn't loud, but it carried to every corner of the room.
The only reason I was even here was as a favor to the organizers. I turned to leave the stage, but Samuel blocked my path.
I flicked my eyes up at him. He stared back intensely.
"Charlotte," he whispered, "you're just as radiant as you were when you were eighteen."
He said it as if he had completely forgotten the woman standing behind him. Rose's face twisted with a jealous rage.
I rolled my eyes and simply walked around him.
Backstage, after a quick call with my husband, Michael Carter, I grabbed my purse to leave.
"Stop!"
It was Rose's voice. I ignored her and kept walking.
She ran, screeching, and grabbed my arm, her long nails digging into my flesh.
I scowled and, without a second thought, slapped her hard across the face.
With pure, disbelieving shock clouding her features, she stumbled back, her hand flying to her cheek.
"You hit me? You actually hit me? Samuel is going to kill you for this!"
She used to scream at me just like that.
I had risked everything to give birth to my second child with Samuel.
The doctors had warned me of the cost: I would never be able to have another. I had accepted it.
And then Rose, in what she claimed was an "accident," had poured a full kettle of boiling water over my newborn son.
His tiny body was covered in blisters, and his skin looked red and raw. He died in his stroller without ever making a sound.
I had gone insane completely and utterly.
I slapped her then, too, and held a fruit knife to her throat, demanding a life for a life.
Samuel had burst in, kicked me away, and gathered a triumphant, weeping Rose into his arms.
He had shown me no mercy. He had his lawyers press charges for assault. After losing my child, I spent a year in prison.
That was our ninth year of marriage.
"You think I still care what he does?" I said.
I grabbed her wrist as she swung at me, stopping her mid-air.
"Charlotte Evans, why won't you just disappear!" she shrieked, her voice cracking. "Why do you have to haunt me? You think just because you're back, Samuel will even look at you? He won't!
"He loves me! Only me! I'm the only one for him, past, present, and future!"
By the end of her tirade, her voice was raw and hoarse.
When a woman has to try that hard to prove she is the only one, it just means she knows her husband's heart is already somewhere else.
I just smirked, crossing my arms as I watched her pathetic display.
"He used to say he loved me, too.
"But the second you batted your eyelashes at him, he threw me away like trash.
"Because to him, we're both just stepping stones on his climb to the top. The only difference is...
"I was the first stone. I just wore out my usefulness a little sooner than you will."
With every word, her shoulders slumped a little more. The arrogant, entitled gleam that had been in her eyes ten years ago was completely gone. All that forced confidence was just a fragile mask.
"No... that's not true..." she stammered, letting out a desperate whisper.
I looked at the woman in front of me. She was despicable, but in a way, she was just as pathetic as I had once been.
I didn't have another word for her. I just walked around her and left.
Tomorrow, I was having my son's grave moved.
I was taking him away from this city of heartbreak forever.
The next day, I went to the cemetery.
The grounds crew and the relocation team were already waiting.
I traced the inscription on the small headstone, "Beloved Son, Shawn Evans," and my heart clenched.
"Baby, I'm here to take you home," I murmured.
I stood up, took a deep breath, and accepted the shovel a worker offered me.
I began to dig, one shovelful after another, into the earth that had lain undisturbed for so long.
"Charlotte, have you lost your mind?" Samuel's voice sliced through the quiet air.
I didn't acknowledge him. I just kept digging.
He strode over and grabbed my arm, his brow furrowed in anger.
"What are you doing? Are you trying to disturb our son's eternal rest?"
Our son? A bitter laugh almost escaped my lips.
I fixed him with a cold, dead stare.
"He is my son, Mr. Grant. And if he could hear you call him that, it would make him sick."
"What are you talking about? He has my blood..."
"Have you forgotten how he died?" I cut him off.
"He died because you were so desperate to claw your way to the top that you didn't care if you had to step on his tiny, dead body to get there!"
The disgust in my eyes was unmistakable. His face twisted with rage, and he raised his hand to strike me.
The next second, an indifferent voice cut through the tense air.
"Mr. Grant, are you planning on making the evening news or just sending your company's stock into a nosedive with that slap?"